Concord-Carlisle Climate Working Group Drafts Monitoring Framework for 2026-27 School Year

CONCORD — July 9, 2026 — Concord-Carlisle School Committee subcommittee opens work on school climate monitoring framework. The Climate and Culture Working Group, comprising School Committee members Brian Watterson, Sandeep Williams, and Michelle McDougal, held its inaugural session July 9 with Superintendent Dr. Lori Hunter and DEIB Director Andrew in attendance, brainstorming data sources and reporting structures for the 2026-27 school year. The group discussed anchoring its framework to two existing district tools — the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, with local results expected this summer, and the Panorama student climate survey, targeted for re-administration in October — while debating how to supplement those instruments with qualitative feedback from student affinity group advisors and METCO families. Member Michael McDougal volunteered to contact outside facilitators Carlos Hoyt and Donna Hicks about potential professional development for the full committee. The DEIB director urged the group to reframe rising bias-incident report numbers as evidence of a cultural shift toward courageous reporting, not a sign of a worsening environment, saying that districts across the state struggle to get students to report incidents at all while Concord-Carlisle no longer faces that barrier.